Balise's Blog

The theme of the day was probably “lava”! We started the day under, let’s say, challenging weather conditions (light rain, significant wind, gloomy atmosphere), so we were quite happy to start the day with an indoor activity, namely the Lava Show in Vík. Their spiel is “you get to see real lava!” and, indeed, you do. It’s a 1h show with an introduction, a small movie about volcano eruptions in general and Katla in particular, and then we get to the core of the show: they pour melting lava in the room, and demonstrate how it cools down. Is it gimmicky? Absolutely. Is it very cool? Well, not really because lava is really hot, but y’know, conceptually, yes, it’s very cool.

We also got to see the furnace where they melt the lava, which was also pretty neat. Overall, the general memory is that my cheeks still feel kind of flushed from the heat! (They’re probably not. The memory is there.)

After the show, the weather was still gloomy; we still made way to the “more dangerous” black sand beach.

That beach is known for very dangerous waves, and there’s been a few accidents recently. There’s a set of lights that indicates where it should be safe to go, and here it was okay to go at the beginning of the beach (there was a map with the area to avoid), so we did that.

There’s actually less sand and more pebbles than on the other side of the mountain, but the waves are indeed more impressive (although we didn’t see anything awe-inspiring – probably for the best!). And we saw more puffins!

We do expect to have significant weather tomorrow, so our plan was to go to the Lava Center a bit after our next hotel (our planned road was much smaller today) and not get tired of the weather just yet. But there was a neat waterfall on the way, so we stopped, and the weather was significantly better by then, so we hiked 😛 The hike started with a 500-step stair (ow), but apart from that it was reasonable. And we did get not one, not two, but three waterfalls for the price of one!

We still made plans with the objective of being able to visit the Lava Centre in Hvolsvöllur, and we did manage to do that. It’s a small but well-made museum on the various ways Iceland tends to emit ash and lava; I missed a bit of more technical information on actual lava rather than volcanoes, but it was still a nice visit. There was also a series of video interviews from people who got recently evacuated from Grindavík after the recent eruptions, and it was moving.

After the museum, we had a bit of time to kill before our restaurant reservation. We ended up popping by Efra-Hvolshellar, a place where there’s a few old (settlement time or earlier, apparently) man-made caves. It was kind of creepy-weird, but it was fun to see.

Finally, we went for dinner and went back to our lodging (this night and the next we’re in a kind of studio in a group of cabins, and there’s no restaurant there). We ended the day by preparing the bags for tomorrow: we’re going to Landmannalaugar (where we kind of expect challenging weather), by bus because the road to there is not one we can drive on (especially with the car we rented!).

Oh, and today I finished my first 64G memory card in my camera. Good thing I had planned for that eventuality. Future me is wincing at the idea of sorting all this 🙂

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-23.

Today’s highlight was, without hesitation: we saw icebergs!

We went to a place called “Diamond Beach” – some pieces of the glacier occasionally fall in the nearby lake (the picture above), follow a path to the sea, and sometimes end their trip on the beach, where they’re quite impressive (and, depending on the type of ice and the light, definitely diamond reminiscent).

This place gave me a lot of feelings – yes, it’s stunning, but it’s also quite depressing when one thinks about it, and with that comes the guilt associated with being part of the problem, as a tourist. Still, I’m very grateful that I got to see this, and hey, I’ve seen icebergs, I didn’t even know it was on my bucket list 🙂

Our next step was a bit further down that road, in Fjallsárlón – another place with icebergs, but with a better view of the glacier. Very cool, and far less crowded, which I appreciated.

Then, we drove to Skaftafell, where we wanted to go for a small hike. We pondered two options, a shorter and easier one, and a slightly longer and with more ascent; the latter won due to promising a waterfall (I’m weak.) The hike was pleasant, but less so than yesterday’s, possibly due to the larger amount of people around (and/or existing fatigue). It was still very nice, and the waterfall at the end was pretty and had cool basalt columns behind it. After the hike, we were both hungry, so we shared a fish&chips at the camping site – it was surprisingly good!

As our last step of the day, we popped a head at the “non-dangerous black sand beach” (the one on the other side of the mountain apparently has genuinely dangerous waves). I was tired and I was cold, but I still really liked the beach and the rock structures behind it.

We had dinner at the hotel, where both the food and drinks were great, and that’s it for today! There’s exactly 0 chance of northern lights tonight considering the clouds. For tomorrow, we have tickets to the “Lava Show” here in Vík, we’ll get to see real hot lava made for the show 🙂

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-22.

We woke up early this morning, and Pierre went for a run. So I was first under the shower and: achievement unlocked, first egg shower of the trip! We had strong memories of hot water really smelling like sulphur on our first trip, but we hadn’t experienced it yet on this one – this is now fixed 😀

Our first hesitation of the day was pondering whether we wanted to go to Hengifoss, which seemed to be a beautiful waterfall, but slightly out of our way. Additionally, some of the comments on Google Maps made me fear that the hike would be beyond my abilities. But I was reasonably rested, the waterfall did look very pretty (and high), it was still quite early in the day – so we decided to go.

I was fairly reassured when we arrived at the parking lot at the bottom of the hike: it looked FEASIBLE. Not easy, but feasible. And indeed, the ascent didn’t pose much of a problem – slow and steady wins the hike, etc etc. And the waterfall was splendid.

Going down was somewhat more challenging (I’m not very good at uphill, but I’m very bad at downhill), but we still managed with ALMOST NO DRAMA and overall it was a great hike.

We got a piece of cake and a coffee at the café next to the parking lot as a reward (and, most of all, as an essential break) before deciding what to do next.

Our next candidate (and next hesitation) was Petra’s Stone Collection. We were both very interested, but it did require going back all the way to our starting point, rather than being able to catch another more direct road south. We finally decided to do that, and am I glad we did.

It’s the private collection of a woman, Petra Sveinsdóttir, who collected stones during her whole life and displayed them in her home and garden. She passed away in 2012, but the museum lives as a family endeavour, and the whole thing brought me so much joy to see – such a labor of passion and love is to be commended. And obviously the collection itself is both impressive and has stunning pieces.

This is just a small corner of a part of the whole exhibition (and we have Pierre hiding in the middle of… pierres 🙂 ) (yeah that one only works in French) (he’s also been called a rock star, so that works). Anyway, I’m so happy that I got to see this place, which felt really special.

For the rest of the day, we mostly drove down the coast, enjoying the wonderful landscapes – this coast line is incredible. It did help that we had great weather, but still.

We did a last stop at the lighthouse in Hvalnes, which has a very nice view over the sea and the surrounding mountains too.

And we arrived tonight at our hotel, which has a clear view over Vatnajökull, the glacier which is the largest ice cap in Iceland (it covers roughly 10% of the country!). We had dinner, a sunset stroll around the hotel, and had a drink at the hotel bar, which had a good view over the nearby mountains and said glacier.

Little hope of northern lights tonight, the cloud layer that’s been absent for a large part of the day spawned around sunset time…

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-21.

Today was much lighter, visits wise, partly because we had a bit of adventures in the morning. Yesterday, the car started complaining about the tire pressure – not something one wants to be sloppy about, especially on these roads. Hence, the first stop this morning was a gas station for, well, gas, and tire pressure. At first, I couldn’t see a tire pressure device anywhere, so I asked the person at the attending shop, who told me “it’s on the side of the building” and gave me a small metallic device.

Somewhat confused, we go to the side of a building, and find a/ a cupboard with a manometer, but locked b/ an air pipe without a manometer. After another confused conversation with a local who didn’t seem to understand why we couldn’t read the tire pressure, we went back in the shop, and the nice lady at the register explained to us that the mysterious metallic device was, indeed, a manometer. Behold:

Yes, it’s a manual linear manometer expressed in PSI. We were not expecting that for sure. But once we got that piece of information, we checked the tire pressure and went on our merry way (after giving back the manometer and our thanks to the shop clerk).

We were on our merry way… not for very long, though, because we hadn’t looked well enough at the road condition website (“it’s summer and we’re on the main road of the country, what can possibly go wrong?”) and it turns out that the bridge over the river of the large fall we saw yesterday was closed multiple hours a day for road works.

We arrived there around 11:15, and the closure was planned until 12:00, with no obvious choice of anything else to do than wait. So we did that, the closure ended a bit earlier than expected (surprising the second person in the queue who ran back to their car), and we were on our merry way… again.

Our first “real” stop of the day was at the Stuðlagil Canyon, where we enjoyed the view over the river and the impressive basalt structures. There was a set of paths and platforms on our side of the canyon, with more hiking paths on the other side (there was a bit of regret of not having gone to the other side, but oh well) and the view was super impressive. And not only because the island in the middle looked like a gigantic alligator.

After this, it was already quite later than what we had expected. There was another possible stop on our path to our other main stop, and the words “we’ll time box the waterfall” may have been pronounced today. It was indeed a quick stop along the ring road, but Rjúkandi was a pretty waterfall.

Our last objective for the day was to go see Hafnarhólmi, known for being a breeding ground for puffins and other birds (although it was slightly too late for the season). Mostly, the road to there was supposed to be spectacular, and there was also many hiking paths in the vicinity. We didn’t have time for the hiking paths, but the road was indeed wonderful: the mountain pass next to the see made us stop multiple times and gush with awe all along the way.

Hafnarhólmi was a nice place, with some installations to be able to watch birds from inside. We saw a lot of gulls, but it was definitely not puffin season. We did see one from afar, however! and decided the mission was a success.

Following that, we drove to our hotel in Egilsstaðir, where we settled and had a great dinner and went for a very short stroll around the hotel  to see the lake. We had some hope to see Northern lights tonight, but it seems the cloud layer is disagreeing with that hope. Maybe later!

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-20.

We’re staying another night in the hotel we reached last night; and today we didn’t go that far away from our home base, but we still did a lot of things!

We had a few spots we wanted to get to, and we had seen many other possibilities in the region. We had some worries this morning because at first it looked like the road to Dettifoss might not be easily accessible with our small car, but the information that we had first found was outdated, and the road was a beautiful paved road all along.

We left shortly after these breakfast worries to go a few kilometers away to have a look at the Skútustadagrig pseudo-craters – pseudo-craters because they haven’t been created by a magma chamber but by a steam explosion when lava came in contact with the lake. Beautiful area, cool formations, and amazing views on the Mýtavn lake.

A bit further away, Höfði was a small hike in a woody area which, considering the low amount of trees in this country, is somewhat of an oddity. The viewpoint at the end of the wood was lovely, and it was a nice and quiet moment.

Next was one of our “must do” for the day: the lava field in Dimmuborgir. It was apparently a “must do” for many people, because this may well be the place where we’ve seen the most tourists so far! And it’s not surprising: it’s a really peculiar place. It’s full of lava pillars that were formed as a lava lake drained and steam erupted, and there’s a lot of structures that really feel unique. The site is well developed with multiple paths of various lengths going through the lava field. Walking around these was definitely a great experience (we may or may not have made Astrosmurf references.)

Our next “must see” was Dettifoss, and we decided to go there immediately after that since it was already the beginning of the afternoon. We made a very short stop on the way when we saw a lake with an amazing blue/turquoise color next to a geothermic power plant.

After a few dozens of kilometers in a landscape that I’d qualify as “desolate”, we arrived at the Dentifoss site. Dentifoss is the second largest waterfall (in terms of water volume) of Europe (the first one being the Rhine falls in Switzerland). I’ve been to the Rhine falls, and the weirdest thing about Dentifoss is how long it takes before you actually see water. We saw the rainbow of the fall much before seeing any water at all, and the surrounding area looks very dry (it’s mostly basalt columns everywhere).

But Dentifoss itself is awe-inspiring. I was speechless when we reached it, and for a while after that I could only make incomprehension noises and gestures.

It’s powerful, it demands respect, it’s incredibly beautiful. The water is an opaque grey, probably from the rock around, and the swirls before the waterfall are mesmerizing.

We walked to Selfoss as well, which is on the same site; and Selfoss is probably suffering from the comparison with its big sister. It’s still a grandiose waterfall (after all, the water volume is comparable, even if it’s not split exactly in the same way), and the area just before the waterfall is beautiful.

Our initial hope was to be able to reach the canyon in Ásbyrgi, but it was too tight, timing-wise, to be sure to be back in our hotel vicinity for dinner time. Instead, we drove back to where we were coming from, and did a stop in Námafjall – we had seen the site from the road on the way, and it looked interesting. Interesting it was, but beware the smell! It’s a geothermal site with a lot of fumerolles and clay pots, and it’s super impressive to see the gray clay boil. The steam coming out of these was also impressive. A great visit, but the strong smell (more than sulfur in there, we think) can be at times overwhelming.

Finally, we still had a bit of time before we had to go back, so we went to see the Krafla crater that was basically on the other side of the road. It’s also the site of a geothermal power plant, and we were both fascinated by the industrial infrastructure around it, pipes going down the volcano and high pressure steam coming out of the vents. The crater itself was also beautiful, with some water at the bottom, and very cool to see from above.

With that, we reached the end of our day; we had dinner at a hotel next to ours – the food was tasty (I particularly liked my broccoli soup), if not super memorable. And we’re back to the hotel, I’m hurting a bit everywhere (it’s been two fairly intensive walking days!) but I’m incredibly happy with the great day we’ve had today.

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-19.

We had a significant amount of road of today’s programme, because the minimum amount of driving was 270km for 3h21. We ended up doing more than that and visited many things along the way: we left the previous hotel around 9h30 and we arrived at today’s hotel at 19h15!

We started with a first stop in Kolugljúfur Canyon, which was, as expected, a canyon. Beautiful place with a waterfall ending in a river flowing inside a canyon.

We then drove to Þingeyraklausturskirkja, which promised a small church with a beautiful panoramic view, and it didn’t disappoint. The church was unfortunately closed (I would have liked to see the inside!), but the panoramic view didn’t disappoint!

Nearby (basically going back to the main road and crossing it), we did a stop at the Vatnsdalshólar view point. Google Maps had a lot of pictures of a dog, and said dog was indeed in the vicinity and very friendly 🙂 There was a small hill with a staircase that had a very nice view over the nearby water and the field of hills behind it.

By that point, we hadn’t moved very far from our departure point towards our goal, so we drove a bit more of the main road, with the goal of stopping at Reykjafoss.

Reykjafoss is a beautiful waterfall, and probably my favorite one of all the ones I saw today. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and the river that feeds it is surprisingly quiet. Of note: there’s also a hot pot on the side of said river, so we crossed paths with a least a pair of people in bathing suits and there was a few more around 🙂 It’s also very close to a stable, so there’s quite a few horses around.

After Reykjafoss, we aimed for our next stop, but did an extra one near Hörgarsveit, which was a decent parking lot on the Ring Road, where we wanted to switch drivers (I don’t drive that much, but I’m trying to drive a bit more so that Pierre can rest a bit!). That bit didn’t work that well because I had to yield the wheel earlier than I would have liked (but my drowsiness level was becoming dangerous 🙁 ), but Hörgarsveit was a nice road stop, with a river flowing down a canyon. Officially there should be hiking trails starting there, but the bit we saw looked frankly too dangerous for us.

Goðafoss was our last planned stop for the day; an impressive waterfall (although carrying a significant amount of particles), with very well organized paths on both sides of it. A very enjoyable site (and sight!).

By then, we were half an hour away from our hotel, which was a good thing as we had a restaurant reservation there 45 minutes later. We arrived in the beautiful area of the Mývatn lake in time for the evening light. We had dinner at the restaurant hotel  (good stuff and well prepared), went outside for a little bit to enjoy the evening view – vaguely spoiled by the amount of insects; this is going to be a problem tomorrow, probably. Still, the area looks amazing.

Back in our hotel room, I realized sunscreen would have been smart today (oops), and Pierre stumbled upon Ghostbusters on the TV (so I watched the end of Ghostbusters, which apparently I know by heart more than I thought), and that’s pretty much it for today!

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-18.

We left our friends after breakfast and drove to Víðgelmir, a lava cave, where we enjoyed a guided tour. All caves I had visited so far were caves dug into the rock by water; this one was made by a river of lava whose exterior cooled while the lava inside continued flowing and draining.

It was fascinating to see the differences and similarities of structures – fluid, whether lava or water, will still do similar things, but also leave different patterns – and different colors and geology too. Our guide was also very entertaining, and overall we were delighted with the visit.

Not too far away, there’s also the waterfalls of Barnafoss and Hraunfossar (both on the same site). Barnafoss is a powerful waterfall that goes below a stone arch, it’s impressive and very picturesque. But my heart definitely goes to Hraunfossar and its gazillion of waterfalls coming from the rocks – as far as I understand, the aforementioned lava river flew over the water, but water still had to go somewhere, and that’s Hraunfossar.

At that point we were both a bit hungry, so we got a couple of slices of cake at the Hraunfossar café – they were much appreciated!

We went back on our tracks to get back to the ring road and continue our way towards Laugarbakki where our next hotel is. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery on the road, stopped a few times for pictures, and arrived there around 5PM.

We made a small break in the room, and I debugged my photography backpack: I had in my mind that it was much easier to put the camera back, and after a few tries in a quiet place with a mirror, I figured out the trick again (I need to lift the camera pocket a bit so that it slides correctly in its place).

We had some time before dinner, so we decided to get out again for a little bit – initially, the plan was “get out, go see the horses nearby, and then we’ll see”. We did end up doing a much larger loop than that, following a path that had indicators but not much of a ground track: small hike, but large adventure 😛 But I managed to not hurt myself despite the fairly challenging terrain: yay me!

To end the day, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant; the selection of “icelandic tapas” and both our mains were excellent; the desserts were good but less memorable. And now we’re just chilling in the room – we have a fairly long road planned for tomorrow!

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-17.

For our 3rd day, we spent the day in the vicinity of our friend’s cabin, and did a few short hikes around.

In the morning, we went for a hike around the Hreðavatn lake, uphill to get a view of the lake and the surroundings, and then up to a cascade between basalt columns, very pretty.

Not far from there, there’s the Glanni waterfall, which we had seen 9 years ago, and which is still very pretty and impressive too!

By then it was lunch time, we made some pizzas (and saw our first Ooni oven in the wild 😀 ), played a game of SCOUT, and then everyone was feeling kind of in the mood for a nap, so we took some quiet time (I read a bit, I caught up on Mastodon, that sort of things.)

After the nap, we went for another stroll to the nearest lake, picking some flat stones on the way to skip stones there (which did happen, but not for me, because I don’t know how to skip stones 😛 )

We walked back to the cabin, had dinner, played a few more games (Innovation, Decrypto and Skull King – Decrypto was really good!), and then we put a map on the table, explained our itinerary and where we were stopping, and got all the places we could and should see along the road.

Another good day – and the weather was far more pleasant than yesterday, there was some sun and a much clearer view on everything!

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-16.

We didn’t have a very precise plan for the beginning of the day today; we had plans for the middle/late afternoon, though, but we kind of made plans as we went before then.

Pierre went for a run before breakfast; he came back and pondered whether he wanted to have something more than his shorts in the current weather. We decided we’d go have a look and that it would be one of our morning missions.

But first, breakfast – fairly unremarkable (quite good though, and surprisingly good bread), apart from the tiny shelf of board games that Pierre noticed:

A Fortnite Monopoly and an Axis&Allies box: some choices have been made, but it’s unclear how 😛

After breakfast, we went to Ice Wear to try to find running leggings for Pierre, and we found something! Interestingly, this is the same shop chain where he had bought a beanie hat 9 years ago (and he’s still traveling with this hat 🙂 )

Then it was time to go and explore. We knew there was a lighthouse not very far, so we went to see the lighthouse; however, we didn’t know that the lighthouse wasn’t accessible at high tide, and… low tide was 5 hours before we arrived.

We still got our first selfie, and it’s a lighthouse selfie, as it should be, even if the lighthouse is a bit far away.

We could have gone for a walk from there, but we decided to start from a bit further away as I’m not entirely confident in my right knee these days (so let’s not fuck it up from the start…); we drove a bit further away to go for a small loop around the nearby golf. It was pretty nice, some sea all around, flat terrain, good stuff. And a hilarious sign at the beginning of the loop, saying essentially “you can relax here, you should hurry here because golf balls fly in this and that direction” 🙂

After that walk, we decided to go to the open air museum on the other side of Reykjavik: it’s a museum where they moved old houses and made a few exhibitions around, mostly, “life in Iceland from the 19th century to now” – there was a lot of neat stuff, and the work on the museum  and the exhibitions was very well done.We also saw one of the (as far as we understand) two locomotives that ever were in Iceland (there are no trains here), which was an unexpected bonus!

We had plans to go see the nearby park/canyon/river, but eventually decided against it as we were quite tired already and the rain started pouring quite heavily.

But, this is where our mid-afternoon plans were starting too! We’re spending a couple of days at our friends’ summer house an hour away from Reykjavik 🙂 We made plans to meet around the local board game shop, Nexus (very nice shop, by the way – good and diverse selection), we went for a bit of grocery shopping (and we got some travel snacks for ourselves), and we arrived in the early evening at said summer house.

We chatted a bit, had dinner, played a couple of board games (Harmonies and Forest Shuffle, both good in different ways!), and it’s now time for bed, for more adventures in the area tomorrow!

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-15.

Last year I wrote my Denmark travel log as I was traveling, and it was a pretty good experience – apart from the fact that writing on a phone is miserable. I’m still writing on a phone, but I added a BlueTooth keyboard to the mix – this should help!

Do not necessarily expect pictures in these posts, as I’m mostly using my DSLR and I’ll process stuff when I come home; but maybe the occasional selfie will still happen here 🙂

Anyway, the first day was mostly a travel day – we left home at 11, spent significant time in the airport because our flight was at 2PM and security was a breeze (the security person made appreciative noises at my camera 😁). We had lunch, we boarded the plane, and we landed in Keflavik after what felt like a long (4 hours) but completely uneventful flight.

Last time we were in Iceland was 9 years ago and we remember the feeling that the airport was under strain, especially in the car renting area; this time around it felt far more streamlined. We had the bad surprise to see that our car had been reserved for 2 days rather than 12; we decided to pay for the difference and handle it with our travel agency (which handled it swiftly) – good thing we could actually do this, it wasn’t a trivial amount of money!

After this small kerfuffle, we took the car from Keflavik to Reykjavik, where we had our first hotel. And, it turns out we have friends in Reykjavik, so we met with them for a small stroll in the city center, followed by an excellent dinner at Monkeys – great food and great company, what more can you ask for!

We ended the day with another stroll around the water, with the hope of digesting a bit (food was great, I had a bit too much of it ˆˆ;). It didn’t completely work – I had a fairly hard time falling asleep after that, and the couple of leg cramps that I attributed to plane and dehydration didn’t help either. But, overall, for a travel day, it worked well, and we did take advantage of our first few hours in Iceland!